Rebel Without a Cause (21 page)

L: ‘What exactly do you think Perry wants to do with you?’

He wants to do it himself. Of course, I know about his bisexual condition. I had a feeling he wanted to, well, I—Well, I have a strong suspicion he wants to—to suck my peter. I don’t want to … He is like that. One time we were talking outside about our relationship now. He said, “I’m in love with you. We’re having a fine courtship,” and that he is really a female. I guess that’s what he wanted. I guess that’s right about the dream. The cello is me and the guitar is Perry. I couldn’t make my manliness fit his femaleness. It wouldn’t go. The strings wouldn’t fit. I couldn’t do it. They’re kind of alike the cello and the guitar, just like me and Perry are both men. The strings don’t fit.

Jesus Christ! A fine courtship!

Things haven’t gone so well with me the last few days. I am aggravated and irritated by people; my nerves are on edge. I am just
blowing off excess steam, I guess. I feel like hitting some fellows. Still I control myself as best I can. I worry about a lot of things. I haven’t felt like this for a long time. When I first came here I was like that: was in a nasty mood almost every day. Then I taught myself to put off these moods and not to stay in them. O, I guess they’re alright once in a while, but when they come too often it’s not good for anyone. I used to feel like that sometimes on the outside. Sometimes I wouldn’t speak to anyone in my family. I’d get these moods when I just wanted to be alone and not talk to or see anyone. What made me feel like that I don’t know. I guess I felt tough, real tough; at least I thought I was tough. I’d wander around anywhere and when I was asked something I wouldn’t even answer. This wouldn’t last long though, sometimes a day or two. I’d want to do nothing but sleep and get away from everything and everybody. When I was up at my aunt’s home I felt like that once in a while. Why I don’t know how to explain. I just wanted to get away. I’d get into some argument with my aunt and I’d want to forget about it. My aunt would want me to do something or go somewhere and I didn’t want to do it. My aunt is alright, only when you see some person for a long time, see the same person all the time, you somehow want to get into an argument with them. Not that I have anything against my aunt and uncle out there. They struggle hard for a living. My uncle sometimes gets in the same kind of moods that I do: he doesn’t want to speak to anyone; and when anyone talks to him he grunts.

I don’t know when I first started to be that way. I guess I must have been about sixteen when I got into those moods. When I was in school before that I was cheerful and friendly except once in a while when somebody said something about my eyes. I used to hang around with a fellow who was just like that. He never said anything to anybody. If somebody said something to me about my eyes I would probably leave but the next morning I was just as cheerful. I don’t know why I’d let it irritate me. I guess I couldn’t help it. I’d get nervous if somebody would talk to me because I thought they might say something to me about my eyes.

Carlson said something to me about my eyes the other night so I told him, “Why don’t you shut up and mind your own business?” I haven’t spoken to him since.

I don’t get that way very often. I think that’s the reason I dislike my father. I don’t dislike him: I just don’t want to speak to him.
Once in a while my mother would call me a blind bat or something like that in Polish, or my sister sometimes would say something.

I used to hang around with my cousin Riggs and he’d call me names like Squint. I don’t know why I hung around him, I disliked him so. I never committed any crimes with him because I hate him so much.

One day I had an argument with him and I hit him. Now I don’t even remember what the argument was about. O, yes; we were going to High School and there was a candy story where we hung out, and we were in the back room where they had some tables and chairs. I swung on him and hit him and he staggered back; then he hit me; then we waited, and he swung no more and we cooled down. One time, when I was still going with that girl Lila he tried to get me to bring her to his brother’s house when there was nobody home. He figured I would do it because there’s no one there I guess, and because I am his cousin. But I wouldn’t do it: when I had a girl I didn’t like to share her with someone else. A lot of fellows when they got a girl would have a long line-up, sometimes as many as fifteen fellows. I never did that because I didn’t like them. They’d get a girl at night and one of the fellows would play the girl up, and then a whole line of fellows would follow him, maybe a block away two fellows and another block away two more, strung out way behind the first guy.

I didn’t like to have my father and mother interfering with what I wanted to do. When I was around seventeen I thought I could handle everything myself as well as anyone could. I didn’t think I was very smart but I thought I was smart enough. This fellow that I told you I was going into business with knew another fellow who used to make different kinds of machines. He made a machine to punch out nickels and he did time for it. He knew how to make all kinds of machines. My friend would go and start a conversation with this fellow so we could get some ideas out of him. We would try to work it to get his ideas for ourselves. That was one time in my life when I really wanted to do something. After that I went back home and started to hang around with another bunch of fellows and
it was the same thing. We used to steal cars and then we’d go out for a ride. I personally never stole a car myself, that is I never got in it and drove it away. I drove stolen cars plenty of times, and I held up people in them. One time Riggs and I were going to steal a car and we got in it and started it and it was in reverse so it backed up against a truck. We just went away and left it there.

Riggs and I used to gamble and when we won money we’d spend it going to the devil, buying whiskey, seeing shows. I don’t know what’s happened to him. I know he found a job as a bell-hop in a hotel and as far as I know he still has it. I guess he was afraid of me. I carried a gun. I didn’t carry it all the time. Nobody ever knew when I was carrying it until, I guess, some of the fellows would see a bulge in my pocket and then they knew that I was carrying it. They thought I carried it all the time. I never got searched by any detective. I always felt I was safest in a big crowd with it. I guess I did it because I wanted something to keep the fellows away from me, and when somebody would say something about my eyes I would get so mad I didn’t know what to do. I guess I’ve had about a hundred inclinations of shooting people. I had several fights about my eyes. When somebody would say something to me about them I would burn up and rush up to him. When I got in a fight I wouldn’t wait for anybody to start at me; I’d grab him by the throat and hit his head against the street or the side of a building or anything. When I fight with somebody I don’t see him. I just feel him, my hands around his head or his throat.

There was a fellow who stole a bicycle; he came to our house and let another fellow take my bicycle, the bicycle I stole. So I got sore and when this fellow came around I rushed at him and banged his head against a fire hydrant. I didn’t hurt him very bad but he went home and told his mother, and his mother came to see my mother; and I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want my mother to know that I stole the bicycle. I managed to get out of it somehow, I guess by a licking. I didn’t get very many lickings. When my father gave me one I remember it was pretty bad, but when my mother licked me by hand it wouldn’t hurt. Sometimes though she would throw something at me, just like my sister.

Once in a while I like talking to people. It depends on who I’m talking to. When you say something about my eyes, Doc, it means nothing.

Yesterday another good friend of mine was asking me about them. I told him to keep quiet. I don’t think I’m very sensitive about my eyes; I just have different periods when I am more sensitive, that’s all. Last night I was up in the library and I was looking at a book catalogue. It was in very small print and I held it close to my eyes and ran my finger up and down the page. Perry came over and said, “Tell me what you want to look at and I’ll get it for you.” The way he said it made me so mad I walked away, and this morning I wouldn’t talk to him.

I agitate myself when I am asleep. I even dream about him. I had a dream last night that we moved from one cell block to another. He moved to the first floor and I moved to the third floor. I was so mad I was cursing everything and everybody. I am not sure it was Perry but it must have been some good friend of mine.

L: ‘Tell me all you remember about your dream, Harold.’

Well, I remember we were living right next to each other and one day he got notice to move and then I also got notice to move to the same cell-block. He was going on the first floor and I was going on the third because we were living next to each other and they wanted to break us up. I was sore and cursing everybody and telling everybody even the Associate Warden that I wouldn’t go. I was cursing and so mad.

I consider him a good friend of mine. As for living next door to each other, that might mean close association. I guess I didn’t like the idea of having us separated, him on the first floor and me on the third, keeping us away from each other. I didn’t want anybody to interfere with our friendship.

L: ‘Can you think of anything more?’

I lived in T cell-block when I first knew him over a year ago. He was on the second and I was on the first floor. I don’t remember anyone else being in the dream. I think it was him; whoever it was had hair like his.

L: ‘Do you see any special significance in the fact that he lived on the first floor and you on the third?’

Well, I live on the third floor now and Perry lives on the second. We didn’t like the place we were living before because the kids were pretty wild and tough. In the dream I was running up and down cursing somebody, and I was yelling I didn’t want to go. When I woke up I thought I was in T cell-block; that’s how real it seemed to me.

I don’t think Perry really dislikes me; I think he likes me a lot but being separated by a floor may have some significance.

We almost got into an argument. I was thinking over what he said about the book in the library and he said it in such a tone I felt like pushing him away and telling him to stay away from me. But I didn’t say anything to him about it: I even acted sort of cheerful.

L: ‘What were the exact words he said to you?’

He said, “What are you doing? Let me look for whatever you want.” I was looking at a book catalogue real close because it was in very fine print. When he said that, in my mind I knew what he really said was, “You can’t see well enough so let me do it.” Maybe that may have led up to the dream. This morning I was angry with him at the breakfast table but this afternoon we were both cheerful. We were kidding about eschatology or something like that and he was a lot of fun. Yet he must have noticed that I didn’t feel so well.

I can’t place anyone else, only Perry. We were living next to each other, our cells were next to each other, but he doesn’t really live next to me. I was dreaming that we lived in P cell-block and were moved to T. He went to the first floor and I went to the third. I don’t see how that could be.

I guess I could consider him my friend. I think that maybe something came between us and stopped our being close friends.

L: ‘What do you suppose could come between you?’

I don’t know what could have. I like the fellow: I will, always. I don’t want to do anything with him but I still like him. I don’t know about the dream. Maybe it was because of the book in the library. Why should I dream I was angry?

L: ‘You wanted to stay close to him?’

Yes; he is my friend.

L: ‘And you feel that something intervened between you?’

That’s it, but I still feel that I am his friend and he is mine. I know that when I was dreaming our cells were close together. Of course, there was a wall between us; still we were as close as possible. Maybe something widened it. What it could be I don’t know. I don’t feel in any way angry with him.

L: ‘Perhaps you felt somewhat alienated by the actions you spoke about yesterday.’

No; I don’t think so. Some day I’ll tell him that I won’t go with him for that.

I don’t feel that there is any meaning, any significance in the dream. As far as I am personally concerned there isn’t any meaning.

L: ‘You will recall, Harold, that he moved away first. Perhaps there is some significance in the fact that he moved first? That, in other words, the alienation begins with him; that he perhaps felt alienated, rebuffed, by your refusal to go into his cell with him?’

O, he was angry, very angry. I remember when he left his cell to come out to stockade about five minutes after I left him, how he looked as if he was ready to kill somebody: there were daggers in his eyes. He said I had two alternatives. He said, after all what am I going with him for if I can’t do anything like that, if I don’t want to; and if I don’t, never to speak to him again. I said if he didn’t want me to speak to him that was alright, but the next morning he was o.k. and I never mentioned it to him again.